Thursday, September 18, 2014

‘You look well-settled’ is the phrase I hear most often for
the pictures I post on Facebook. There are others, less gullible, more curious,
who want to know what the immigrant experience is really like. To give the
right answers, I can perhaps do best with drawing out the series of images that
keep recurring in my mind. These days my experiences are images and emotions which I know will fall apart completely if described in words. Maybe these drawings will become proper complete works one day, but for
now, they are within the pages of a sketchbook, a visual record of a slow careful transition from one world into another, where every decision has to be weighed
carefully before it is acted on; putting down roots takes time, the past has
wiped itself out, the future is hazy, my goal is clear.

"You will find your own ethical dilemmas in all parts
of your lives, both personal and professional. We all have different desires
and needs, but if we don’t discover what we want from ourselves and what we
stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled. Sooner or later, we are all
asked to compromise ourselves and the things we care about. We define ourselves
by our actions. With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are.
Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many
kinds of success."

If I had a single piece of advice to offer to any artist, it would be this: whatever your practice or medium, draw constantly. Be like the dancer, who never lets a day go past without a class. Draw as much as you can, wherever you can. Draw from observation (of course) but draw for practice too, from memory or from imagination, mark-making for precision or beauty-of-line alone, regardless of subject or likeness. Draw with pencil, with nibbed-pen, with charcoal or crayon or Conté pencil or biro. Draw with brushes and inks, or twigs dipped in watercolour or with old toothbrushes or the tips of feathers. Draw with anything. Subvert habit with new experience. Drawing can be for recording, but more than that it’s an expressive form that can be endlessly reinvented. Keep project-books and work at them even when the spirit doesn’t move you. Work in them out of discipline and respect for your art-form. They’re money in the bank for later, when you need the inspiration stored in them. Draw. Draw again. Never stop drawing.